The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) says any attempt by President Muhammadu Buhari to present his preferred successor would be rejected by Nigerians.
President Buhari had in an interview with Channels Television on Wednesday said his preferred successor might be eliminated if he reveals the identity of the person before the 2023 general elections.
Reacting to President Buhari’s comment on Thursday, the opposition party described the Buhari government as a failure, adding that any candidate chosen by the president would also fail.
The PDP made this known in a statement signed by its spokesman, Debo Ologunagba, titled ‘Just Go! Nigerians Don’t Want a Successor From You – PDP Tells Buhari.’
According to the PDP, the figures and achievements released by the president during the interview on Wednesday were false, bogus and an attempt to rationalise his failure in office.
The statement reads: “In his ludicrous attempt to rationalise his failures in office, President Buhari falsely claimed that under the PDP, from 1999 to 2014, crude oil sold for an average of $100 per barrel but collapsed to $37 per barrel when he and his APC assumed office.
“Such false claims fly in the face of hard fact as the records, which the President must have, clearly show that when the PDP took office on May 29, 1999, crude oil sold at $16.27 per barrel and about $80.42 and $63.28 by November and December 2014 respectively.
“Under President Buhari and the APC, the oil price has never fallen as low as $16 per barrel as recorded under the PDP but started at $37 to $39.44 per barrel in 2016 and has continued to hover between $60 to $70 per barrel to date.
“Despite the low oil revenue when the PDP took over, it expanded the economy, paid off Nigeria’s foreign debts, revamped her productive sectors, provided a conducive investment environment that encouraged massive foreign investments and handed over a $550bn economy—largest in Africa and 26th globally—to Buhari and the APC in 2015.
“The President had no answers when, in the Channels Television interview, he was confronted with the facts that when he took over, the debt stock was N12tn but now N32tn and counting; that inflation, which was about 9 per cent under the PDP is now over 15 per cent; that unemployment rate, which was about 8.9 per cent is now 33 per cent, that the naira which exchanged at about N197 to a dollar under the PDP is now over N500 and that the petrol price which was N87 in 2015 is now N165 per litre under the APC.”
The PDP said that Buhari should have instead apologised to Nigerians during the interview for his failure to secure the lives and properties of the people and other problems his government has caused.
It added: “President Buhari should have seized the opportunity provided by Channels Television to show remorse, apologise to Nigerians for his monumental failure and national embarrassment that the APC government represents instead of trying to rationalise APC’s failures with falsehood and grandstanding about a successor.
“The mindset of Mr President as exhibited in the Channels TV interview confirms the fears of Nigerians that the APC does not believe in democratic practice and is determined to manipulate the 2023 election by all means.
“That explains their desperation to scuttle the Electoral Act Amendment Bill provision for electronic transmission of election results, which will effectively truncate the APC’s plans to rig the 2023 election.
“We, therefore, warned that the President and the APC should know that Nigerians are fully rallied around the PDP to face them in 2023.“
Source; Bibian Anekwe news
